Pictou County power plants pivot to ‘dry’ technology, slashing need to draw groundwater
Pictou County power plants pivot to ‘dry’ technology, slashing need to draw groundwater
Publish Date: 2026-06-23 11:06:00
Source Domain: www.cbc.ca
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The new natural gas and diesel power plants that are on the horizon for Pictou County will not draw or discharge water at an industrial scale, the grid operator has decided.
The shift to a so-called dry system comes 10 months after plans for two gas-fired plants were made public. The proposals swiftly drew criticism from locals and organizations who highlighted potential negative environmental impacts.
Among their concerns were that aquifers that feed residential wells would be drained, and that ecosystems supported by local wetlands, brooks and rivers would be irreparably altered.
Under the original proposal, at peak operations, each 300-megawatt plant would have drawn 175,000 litres of water per hour from deep wells and used it to cool the system and quell air emissions. Much of the water would have turned into steam, but the process would have also created wastewater — 50,000 litres per hour at peak.
The wastewater would have gone through a “neutralization system” and then into nearby watercourses.
But Chris Milligan, IESO’s vice-president of planning and procurement, said new studies determined “there would not be sufficient groundwater there to use a high-water technology in our plants.”
“And so we have adjusted — based on both that fieldwork and the feedback we’ve heard from the community — our procurement process to require a low-water technology for emissions control,” he said in an interview.
According to the IESO, this type of low-water combustion system is commonly referred to as “dry low NOx.”
Chris Milligan, vice-president of planning and procurement for the Nova Scotia Independent Energy System Operator. (Jeorge Sadi/CBC)
IESO does not plan to build the power plants itself, rather it’s preparing to put out a…
